Vanessa Kirby

“She is uniquely as home on stage as she is on set and having seen her do both it is clear just how talented she is” – Producer James Bierman, Genius

It’s impossible to get a word in edgewise with stage and screen actress Vanessa Kirby.[7] After hiccups in her formative years—Bristol Old Vic Theatre School turned her down, then she turned down her place in LAMDA—finally, she signed with a talent agency. And in 2009, theatre director David Thacker swiftly cast her in stage productions of literary masterpieces by Ibsen, Shakespeare, and Arthur Miller. Wordplay on point, she won the BIZA Rising Star Award for All My Sons, going on to do steady stage work, in addition to film roles. Much like her flourishing career, she’s impossible to keep up with in conversation—her words firing with the “same rapidity as a turn or twist of a rollercoaster” according to Vogue. But casting directors must favor her vociferousness delight. Of eight forthcoming films (gasp!) Genius places her alongside Colin Firth, Jude Law and Guy Pearce in events surrounding Max Perkins’ time as the book editor at Scribner (she’s plays Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of the troubled author). And in forthcoming TheDresser she stars opposite oh-so-royal Sir Ian McKellen and beloved Sir Anthony Hopkins. As they say in CALIFUK, it’s not speaking too much, if what you say is noteworthy.

7 Born 1988[a]

7.a “It’s not too hard to envision him hosting a national talk show”[i]